DA increases effort to remove Dougan

The Suffolk County DA has ramped up his campaign to stop Judge Raymond G. Dougan from hearing criminal cases.

DA Daniel F. Conley on Tuesday filed a 72-page motion with Dougan asking him to withdraw from pending criminal cases in Boston Municipal Court and to not preside over any future criminal cases, the Boston Globe reports. The motion cited several cases that Conley believes supports his accusation that Dougan is biased against police and prosecutors.

Conley has complained about Dougan to the Supreme Judicial Court and the state Commission on Judicial Conduct.

“I think what he’s doing is attacking the independence of the judiciary,” said Michael B. Keating of Foley Hoag in Boston. He added that the cases Conley cites in his motion all fall within the scope of judicial discretion.

Conley’s campaign against Dougan sends a dangerous message to other judges, Keating said.

“I worry about the impact,” he said. “To have a prosecutor decide what judges ought to hear criminal cases flies not only in the face of judicial independence but the due process clause. That’s just not how the system works.”

2 comments

This is a bad move by the DA. Every defense lawyer in Massachusetts should start making notes of every time a Judge says or does anything that appears to be anti-defendant, or pro-police, or pro-prosecution (and I guarantee this list won’t take long to be very, very long). And once the DA sets the precedent that judges you disagree with are open to attack, there should be no reason why defense lawyers can’t start holding pro-prosecution judges to the same standards.

Have you tried a case in front of him?
Have you conducted arraignments in front of him?
Have to argued suppression issues in front of him?
I have. The results are a foregone conclusion, and that’s not right.